I do not know which of the new comers, named above, so struck Lady Townshend, that she told Horace Walpole, in September, 1745, "she had seen a new fat player, who looked like everybody's husband." Walpole replied, "I could easily believe that from seeing so many women who looked like everybody's wives!" In all other respects, there is little worthy of notice, save that, at the close, when all was jubilee again, and Charles Edward no longer an object of fear, Garrick re-appeared in London. He arrived in town in May, 1746. Rich and Lacy were both eager to engage him, but the former succeeded, and Garrick closed the season at Covent Garden, by playing six nights at £50 per night. Thus he gained more in a week than Betterton, ere he was a "master," had gained in a year. Lacy, meanwhile, had secured Barry, and the town were eager to hear him of the silver-tongue. Garrick generously said of him, in answer to a query respecting the merits of the Irish actor, that he was the most exquisite lover that had ever been seen on the stage. Barry proved the truth of this criticism, by excelling Garrick in Romeo, in which the latter was so fervent, the former so winning and so seductive. Before we proceed to notice the coming struggle, let us cast back a glance at the stage from whence this master came. FOOTNOTES: [40] There is some obscurity about this date. Garrick's handbill in answer to Macklin's "case" says that the latter was published in order to prejudice him _that night_, and the bill is dated 5th December 1743; but, in succeeding advertisements, the disturbance is alluded to as "Tuesday night's" riot. Now Tuesday was certainly the 6th, not the 5th. [41] It is extremely improbable that Foote was the unnamed "Gentleman" who played Hamlet on this occasion. [42] Cashell's Hamlet was a personal eccentricity on his benefit night; not an attempt on the part of the theatre to oppose Garrick. [43] Very doubtful. The statement rests on Victor's authority. [44] Faulconbridge and Iago seem also to have been new characters this season. [Illustration: JAMES LACY.] CHAPTER VII. THE OLD DUBLIN THEATRE. But for a murder in the house of a Mrs. Bungy, Dublin would not have had its famous old theatre in that locality, which the popular voice _would_ call by the name of _Smock Alley_ (from the handsome hussies who lived there), long after Mrs. Bungy's house and those adjacent to it had been swept away, and the newer and finer edifices were recorded as standing in "Orange Street." The first theatre in this questionable locality was erected soon after the Restoration; but at the period named, this house and theatricals, generally, were opposed with as much bitterness in Dublin as in Edinburgh.